New Juventus CEO Maurizio Scanavino believes the 15 point penalty handed to the Bianconeri is ‘unjust and unequal’. The Old Lady were hit with the points deduction on Friday and have already announced that they plan to appeal to CONI. Speaking to DAZN ahead of Juve’s match against Atalanta, Scanavino discussed the verdict at length and what the club plans to do next:
What are the reasons that lead you to use the term ‘injustice’?
“First of all, I would like on behalf of the entire club to distance myself from those pseudo-fans who have used language of hatred and threats against the FIGC President Gravina, his family and the prosecutor Chinè.
We will clearly support our defence with great decision and with great strength, but always with great competence, professionalism, respect, in the appropriate ways and forums. Going to the question, we consider this sentence absolutely unjust and unequal. In the coming days we will await the outcome, the motivations that should arrive by the end of the month, but we will certainly appeal to CONI to support our positions. We have very solid, very clear positions, which have already been successfully accepted in the ordinary way, so in addition to these we believe we have even more, so we will continue along this path.
That it is an unjust sentence is evidently not only believed by us, Juventus, and our fans, because in recent days I have appreciated – and for this I thank – fans of other teams, people who have worked in football for a long time, even well-known personalities who participate in television programmes or important social formats, who have absolutely understood the exaggeration and unfairness of these decisions. I believe they have understood that federal justice can behave in a summary and unfair way, and this creates concern, because today it can happen to Juventus, tomorrow it can happen to any other team.”
There is also the problem that you have to reorganise at management level. How do you do it in this month of the transfer market and without Cherubini?
“Cherubini has a role as sporting director, so he has several tasks within this role. Clearly he is inhibited from doing a whole range of activities, including the transfer market. We got organised quickly, we reacted immediately yesterday, and I found great unity within the club, the management and also the team, and we decided to appoint Francesco Calvo as Chief Football Official of the sports area, to whom Cherubini’s area, Braghini’s area and all operations will report.
Francesco is a well-known person in the world of football, he has a great deal of experience gained both in Italy, at Juventus and Roma, and abroad, at Barcelona, as well as having done much of his career in a multinational company like Philip Morris. As far as possible market negotiations are concerned, Francesco will help me, along with Giovanni Manna, who is the current sporting director of Next Generation, and who also has great expertise in football market matters.”
What is your feeling for the future? Are you optimistic or do you fear the worst with harsher penalties?
“We have to be ready for anything, unfortunately this ruling has taught us that it is useless to be optimistic or pessimistic, we have to be prepared, ready, determined, this is what we will do. To tell the truth, even in this situation, which we did not expect could have this dimension, it is something that was in the options anyway. We are not unprepared and we will do better, on this ruling and on all the others that await us. We have a Council of extremely experienced people, an extremely capable pool of lawyers, and so we will pursue our arguments with great determination.”
Were the team and its leaders shaken?
“I saw great unity starting from the first meeting yesterday morning with the coach and then in the meeting we had with President Ferrero with the whole team. In some ways I was also a bit surprised, but probably because it was also my first experience, but nevertheless I found an extremely serene, extremely determined group. We had already had the opportunity to represent what was the situation the club was experiencing, so they were aware, prepared, it seems to me that even the messages they sent individually yesterday on their social profiles confirm what the mood is, what the situation is, so I would say I saw them well.”
Will there be room in the future for figures with a more sporting background in the club?
“Let’s say that this is a very particular phase, we have to be very lucid, give ourselves priorities, we have a situation in the sporting area that is extremely clear, extremely solid and serene, so we also expect a lot of points to come from the field, so at this moment it’s important to maintain a certain discipline, a certain order, and then once these phases have passed there will be a phase two and we’ll see what the conditions will be.”
Do your plans include wearing a ‘new suit’ and cleaning up Juventus’ image and behaviour a bit?
“I would say that there is nothing related to what you just said, everyone has their own characteristics, we must not disconnect from anything, we are a pool of professionals, of people who have a whole range of skills, clearly dedicated to the management of the club, the sporting side and all the judicial issues. So I don’t think the president wanted to distance himself from anything but simply to say that we will have a professional, competent and respectful approach’.
